A Wheel in the Machinery
by Dr. Autux
Summary: An epistolary story about Atlas' time as a Marduk.
1. Chapter I

Marduk Organisation  
  
Log book writing template  
  
Issued on 12 mars, version 5.44 revision #35  
  
Logs for use in the Marduk Organisation are to be written in accordance with this template.  
  
Header:  
  
Title - the title is to describe the frequency at which the actual log is written, e.g. daily or bimonthly.  
  
Name of department - e.g. Marduk Paramedical Department  
  
Sector # along with additional info  
  
Author: - name of author  
  
Date: - date of log writing  
  
Body:  
  
Log text  
  
Personal notes  
  
For use with private matters relating to the log or matters having occurred during the timeframe which the log covers, e.g. list of purchases, appointments etc.  
  
Grammatical structure and such are defined in template #7533  
  
---  
  
Weekly log  
  
Marduk Urban Defence Forces  
  
Sector Y18 of exclave N33  
  
Date: 12 November  
  
Author: Atlas  
  
There were some small riots today due to accusations towards us made by unemployed and dissatisfied suburbanites that we were to blame for the destruction of a robotic maid wandering around the streets. It soon escalated and we were forced to intervene. Other than that nothing noteworthy has taken place.  
  
Personal notes, encrypted:  
  
According to locals a robotic maid has been trashed by our Marduks while sent out to shop for groceries by its owner. It's not a question of whether we, the Marduk are behind this or not, it is a fact. Our mission is to 'prevent any harmful activities by robotics aimed towards the public' but it has more or less begun to resemble random vandalism. A maid-bot on it's way home from the grocery store, how's that an harmful activity?   
  
I sense that frustration is growing among the men. The hoards of robots gone mad are not to be seen and I fear that they are simply part of the propaganda made up by our executives. But alas I fear to relieve me thoughts to my comrades, they may view me as unpatriotic or dismiss me as cynical.  
  
And the riot, nothing more than a few drunkards and a trio of middle-aged men that were beaten and ridiculed by a couple of guards before being sent away, I would know as I watched it all from my seat in the guard tower.  
  
---  
  
Date: 19 November  
  
Author Atlas  
  
An illegal factory for biochemical weapons has been disposed of and perished in accordance with our orders. An unknown number of agitators were retired in the operation that was executed at the night of the 17th.  
  
Personal notes, encrypted:  
  
A group of our men had been ravaging a local bar after the owner had refused to let them drink free of charge. In response they had torched the whole restaurant and one of them reportedly had begun firing maniacally around him injuring and killing several people. The whole building and several close by were burnt down to the ground.  
  
It is things like these that make me wonder if being drafted really was such a blessing after all. When I look back, was my mind dimmed by the recent war? Did I not comprehend the change from living in a large peasant family to live as an urban all by myself, suddenly an orphan? When I sit here alone in my guard tower I begin to wonder what values this red uniform I am dressed in represent, if life in Zone 1 working at the assembly line wasn't that bad in comparison... 


	2. Chapter II

Date: 26  
  
Author: Atlas  
  
As the first flakes of snow have descended upon the streets of the city and orders have been given to have our winter gear and equipment ready for use before the end of the month.  
  
There has been no evidence in increased agitator activity since the commencement of the snowfall. Albeit it may render our vehicles unusable until the necessary material has been provided from the capital. Until then orders have been given to cease civilian flight from the airport and to have ploughs clean the landing ways twice a day.  
  
Small amounts of propaganda were collected and burned in accordance with directive 19-32 of disturbing written material published without the state's consent.  
  
Personal notes:  
  
None  
  
---  
  
E-mail to Ms Metis, Metropolis  
  
From: Mr Atlas  
  
To: Ms Metis  
  
Subject: Re: Re Memories  
  
How nostalgic the first sight of a snowflake slowly descending towards the   
  
ground made me feel. It had been winter as I arrived at the outskirts of the   
  
capital.  
  
How I long to see the magnificent capital once again. Although I fear that   
  
maybe the clouds of nostalgia are betraying me, that the capital is nothing   
  
more than a grey compound of industries, humans and machines living in   
  
symbiosis. That there as there is here poverty, destitute and crime to be   
  
found below the glistering surface.  
  
Indeed you have been away from home a long time. Though, when I read your   
  
lines I feel like you are somehow portraying the capital as mechanical, yet it   
  
stirs with life as ever before. Yet the investments have ceased and in   
  
fortnight we will face unemployment and has no choice but to return to Zone 1.   
  
I must confess I that the thought of returning home has stricken me. Along with the help of our friends we should be able to mend this now so broken and beloved capital of ours. Albeit I haven't reached a decision yet, my heart remains at this time loyal to the organisation. Do not fear for you will hear from me again, soon when I have reached my decision. But until then I'll have to comprehend if this is a mere phantasy or something real.  
  
Yours sincerely,   
  
Atlas  
  
Date: 3 December  
  
Author: Atlas  
  
We received a visitor from the capital today. It was young Rock-san who made a throughout security inspection, including going through all of our logs. Everything seemed to be in accordance except for a few gas masks of peripheral importance that are currently unaccounted for. Other than that our efforts to restrain guerrilla activity was praised.  
  
Personal notes, encrypted  
  
--  
  
As soon as the word spread that Rock-san was arriving some of us were immediately ordered to go out on the streets and arrest agitators or guerrilla fighters. The had been a brief note about a commander being executed due to showing too poor results in the gazette not to long ago. Apparently she had not 'captured nor retired' a sufficient amount of people. There had been rumours of her innocence. Some claimed that she had been the victim of some obnoxious misogynist's perverse ways. Or even that she had indeed retired all of the robots in her sector in well-worked out cleansing operations and that the remaining population was civilians, albeit some of them dissatisfied or downright angry towards the Marduk but still no riots or guerrillas were among them. But that the organisation, confronted with this, had not spared her life.  
  
Thusly as I've mentioned, some of us were instantly dispatched and our number one priority became to arrest and detain suspected agitators and guerrilla fighters. There were also reminders of what grim fait awaited those who dared to commit treason in any way and I know I wasn't the only one to shudder at the thought of that.   
  
Layabouts, librarians, orphans and random men were arrested. They were officially accused of conspiracy towards the Marduk organisation and thereby planning to commit actions that would break the cease-fire agreement agreed on in the aftermath of the war - everything in accordance with the martial law that had been, and still is in effect since then in the exclave.  
  
But as Rock-san witnessed how the detainees part in this life where shortened in order to impress him he only looked aloof. He did not give the impression that he despised my superiors futile and botched attempts to show efficiency, but that he was nonchalant to what was taking place before his eyes. As the gunfire lit up the room I could swear that for a split second I could see through his coal black shades and spot a black look in those icy eyes of his; a black look aimed towards my sycophantic superiors. The same superiors who were now joyfully shouting orders to the marksmen, hence wasting Rock's time. These people dying didn't change anything, and I felt that the look in his eyes confirmed my thoughts.  
  
Ironically I thought, this wouldn't likely have taken place at all if it had not been for him being here. And why was he here? In order for us to remember who were in charge; that the Duke's organisation had his eyes on us in back in the capital, no doubt. We all knew it, yet no one spoke of it.  
  
In that very moment I felt if it we were like a plague, a virus. Carefully constructed by some wicked scientists for reasons beyond our comprehension. That we were lost sheep, guided by a mysterious shepherd of whom authority we did not dream of ever oppugning. That the wickedness carried out through us was somehow justified due to the fact that our actions originated from a single fugleman's whishes; that we were following orders. Being good soldiers.   
  
'He flexed his muscles to keep his flock of sheep in line  
  
He made a virus that would kill off all the swine  
  
His perfect kingdom of killing, suffering and pain  
  
demands devotion atrocities done in his name'  
  
As I stood there amongst the others who had also been ordered to attend in the echelon. I suddenly felt contempt. Contempt towards the organisation which I had been with for so long, I felt it grow inside me like a freshly planted sea. The organisation didn't shudder a moment to rape, loot or even murder normal people totally indifferent in the face of whether they were innocent or not. People who went to work everyday in order to put food on their plates, normal people who did exactly as I'd done myself when I was in their shoes.  
  
Not that I care a moment for these souls, but I am filled with rage when I witness how we waste our efforts. The robots are overflowing the capital, sneaking upon every corner, waiting for their chance to create havoc and ruination of civilisation as we know it. Yet the government is indifferent to this threat evolving in front of its nose, blinded and mislead by the plutocrats.   
  
My comrades have all sewn their eyes shut, become shells, empty vessels. My once so optimistic allies have grown nihilistic. Being robbed of their salad days, like confused children who have bit by bit come to the realisation that the sinister boy who borrowed their candy-bar isn't ever coming back. Only now that this time they are the sinister boy, and that things it may never be the same. Thus they cannot and refuse to return to the capital as mere rapists, thieves, murderers and torturers. For that is what they have become.  
  
---  
  
Author's note: The quote is from the song Heresy written by Michael Trent Reznor. 


	3. Chapter III

Title: A Wheel in the Machinery (part III of III)  
  
Author: Dr Autux  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Pairing(s): N/A  
  
Feedback: Desired  
  
Characters: Canon and some minor fanon characters.  
  
Notes: This is the third and last part of this story. It's epistolary and is thus meant to be read like a false document, journal etc.  
  
Disclaimer: Metropolis (the manga) was created by the late Mr Osamu Tezuka and the 2001 anime is written by Mr Katsuhiro Otomo and is copyrighted by Tezuka Productions 2001.  
  
Copyleft Dr Autux 2004, all rights reversed. This fic is hereby placed in the public domain.

* * *

A Wheel in the Machinery Part III of III  
  
'When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick".'  
  
- Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy

* * *

Date: 10 December Author: Atlas  
  
All quiet on the western front.  
  
Personal notes, encrypted:  
  
I have been assigned to another nightshift. Basically its just another building 500 metres away and it includes no other means of work. But there is a difference, due to the importance of the roadblock being kept under surveillance there you are usually positioned two-and-two. Although one day my comrade was missing, in his place what did I find but a phoney?  
  
I reasoned that it would be different. That it was ironic that robots were being used by the organisation. That it was precisely as when the empire's boundaries reached as far as to the Dark Continent. Then it frequently occurred that some of the native barbarians volunteered for service. Thus they were drafted and used to fight their very own race. They were armed with the lousiest weapons and fed with their squadron's leftovers.  
  
In the light of this, how can I best explain the rage that fulfilled my bones and took me over the edge? How I during that time filled with adrenaline ceased to be the master of myself. I will here give a chronological retelling in the hope that it will shed some light upon it all when I read this over again once I've slept on the matter.  
  
Anyway, as I wrote above. When I arrived I was enraged at the soulless creation's very presence before me. How it came to personify the utter act of disregard towards myself and my fellow man.  
  
Are we humans to be replaced by these mechanical drones; are they cheaper, or perhaps superior to their flesh-and-blood counterparts? Madness I say, madness is it to be ruled by an ignoramuses, whom else would reach such a decision?  
  
How have we transformed from a community of sincere volunteers to a mere militia or, may I say even a paramilitary force only to serve miser capitalists and what's in their and their pocketbooks interest for the time being? We exist in order to keep the interminable cleansing process going. In short to do what we can do in order to serve humanity and what's in its well being.  
  
In short I flung the monstrous creation into the wall, smashed and stomped it to bits. It was like a defenceless puppy, trying desperately to hide itself from my kicks before it went, tottering towards the door. This was when I let my rifle put an end to that wretched creation.  
  
I have spent some numerous nights at the library where I have hid away a very controversial manifesto. There are some writings that after you've read them change the course of your life, change the very being that you are. It is very old and I found it well hidden where it must have remained during numerous book burns. The language was partially rather archaic and generally hard to understand but with the help of an old dictionary and ample of time assigned to this task I think managed to understand the most of it.  
  
I know realise that these guardians have become tyrants themselves. And that that their way will never lead to a change, the metallic drones will still wander upon our streets, inhabit our workplaces and toil free of payment day in, day out. We common labourers will have to unify if we are to make our cries heard of.  
  
I cite:  
  
'The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first, the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the work of people of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois condition of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.'  
  
- Marx K., Engels F.

* * *

E-mail to Private Atlas of exclave N33, sector Y18  
From: The Central Marduk Agency  
Date: 14 December  
Subject: Re: Resignation  
  
This is an automated answer.  
  
Your appliance for resignation has been received and is soon to be processed. After processing you will receive a reply to your enquiry.

* * *

Summary  
  
This is the gathered communications for the agitator as requested by you Mr Minister of State. As you can see for yourself it mostly consists of pathetic rants and contains neither actual planning nor indication of an attack aimed toward the Metropolis intelligentsia.  
  
On the one hand it is bureau policy to enforce capital punishment upon quislings. Albeit a sloppy censor failed to make notice of the behaviour so clearly indicated by his log book-writings whilst he was still in service (at the time of writing this the censor has already been hanged and replaced). On the other hand since the agitator's abode is not known and since it is no longer serving as a Marduk the task of localising it in Metropolis would demand vast financial resources.  
  
In the light of this and after thorough assessment by myself along with several colleagues we have found that there is no reason to recommend that neither the Metropolitan Police nor the Metropolitan Intelligence Agency shall enforce the means necessary in locating and neutralising the subject at hand.  
  
And if I may add on a personal note: I myself am of the opinion that the subject is nothing more than a harmless demagogue suffering from robotphobia -- that is to say if it is even alive.  
  
Yours faithfully,  
Signed Baroness T.W. Murdstone  
  
Marduk Internal Intelligence Bureau 


End file.
